Hello all i do hope someone can help me on this problem i have only just started having

I have recently made my self a form of workbench to house my cnc router on the top of it and placed my PC and my stepper motor drivers and power supply below on a shelf
So I can slide a clear Perspex door across to stop dirt from entering now since I have made this and placed all my equipment in it my PC starts up fine and when I start my mach 3 everything is great but as soon as I turn on the steppers my PC slows right down as if a program is taking up all the bandwidth
My mouse moves very very slowly across the screen.Is there any idea that you can think of which will cause such a problem.
I have looked in the windows task manager and the only program I have running is mach 3 which is only a few percentage of my total bandwidth

Thankyou
ps i am running xp mach3 cut 2d and nothing elase

Seem to remember reading something similar to this when there were documents waiting in the print que and it slowed everything when Windows discovered something connected to the printer port.
It's a long shot but if you are not using it then uninstall the printer and see if this makes any difference.

Tweakie.

I dont have any other device connected to it no printer no scanners nothing.Because i have re routed all my wires can having the power cable too close to the stepper motor wires cause any trouble of any kind
thanks for your reply
kevin

Hi Kevin,

I was referring to the software printer driver not an actual printer.   (Start, Control panel, Add/remove programs, ? printer)

It would be wise to have power cables routed separate to stepper drive cables but this is more likely to cause electrical noise problems and erratic behaviour rather than just slow the whole system down.

Tweakie.

oh i see im sorry i will try that and see what happens
many thanks anyway